H. W. LUCY.
(From a Photograph by Walery, Limited.)
Mr. Lucy had already graduated as the Pepys of Parliament; for he had been known in gallery and lobby of the House for the past ten years, and was acting as chief of the Parliamentary Staff for his paper. He was, therefore, considered particularly well-fitted for the new post on Punch, and he readily accepted the invitation. His first contribution was a sort of prospectus of Toby's Diary, which was published on January 8th, 1881. Thenceforward Mr. Lucy became known as "Toby, M.P.;" and when a puzzled Member of Parliament, familiar with his face, would occasionally ask him in the Lobby, "By the way, where are you member for?" he would answer "Barks" and pass on. It is not uncommon to find unregenerate members taking to themselves the credit of the witticisms which Toby puts into their mouths; so that there is perhaps excuse for the biographer of Lord Sherbrooke (Robert Lowe), who attributed to his subject the capital exclamation with which Mr. Lucy endowed him. When he saw a deaf member get his ear-trumpet into position in order to listen to a tedious orator, he remarked (according to Toby): "What a pity it is to see a man thus wasting his natural advantages!" And Lowe has had the credit of it ever since.
No one in the House knows its members so well as Mr. Lucy; no one out of it is so well acquainted with its procedure; and when for a short time he reluctantly filled the editorial chair of the "Daily News," he was unhappy till he got back to Toby's "kennel" in the gallery of the House of Commons.
But the Essence of Parliament as distilled by "Toby" is by no means the only, hardly even the most voluminous of Mr. Lucy's Punch work. In the recess he is a constant contributor as Mr. Burnand's deputy in the character of Punch's reviewer—"The Baron de Book-Worms," through whose personality "My Baronite" appears from time to time; while among his serial articles have been "The Letter-bag of Toby, M.P.," and the set of Interviews with Celebrities at Home, parodies of the "World's" articles, which delighted none so much as Edmund Yates himself.[48] Mr. Lucy joined the Table on his return from Japan in 1884.
But it is as "Toby" that he has gained most of his popularity. He showed the way about the House of Commons to Mr. Harry Furniss; and, up to the withdrawal of the latter, his "Diary" was always illustrated by that artist. Later on Mr. Edward J. Reed took the place Mr. Furniss resigned, and the pair continue to set before the world their humorous versions—perversions, it would be hardly fair to say—of Parliamentary proceedings. Mr. Lucy's touch is light and original, imparting an appearance of interest and entertainment to the dullest debate, and of verisimilitude to the most doubtful statements. Yet the "Diary" is not without its value as a record, while it remains an amusing commentary upon the work of the Session, and an entirely inoffensive caricature of the men and speeches with whom it deals.
In 1884, when the entertainer's platform was offering inducements superior to those of the stage, Mr. George Grossmith began a series of sketches in Punch, entitled "Very Trying," the fourth article of which contained a skit of Mr. Flowers, the Police Magistrate at Bow Street, under the heading of "The Good-humoured Magistrate," and another dealt with Mr. Vaughan. Then came his funny musical sketches, with a few bars of absurd music sprinkled here and there in imitation of the London concert books. A few songs he also contributed to the paper, "The Duke of Seven Dials" becoming "popular even unto Hackney." Then, in collaboration with his brother, Mr. Weedon Grossmith, he produced "The Diary of a Nobody." It was a domestic record of considerable length, which dealt in an extremely earnest way with Mr. Samuel Porter, who lived in a small villa in Holloway, and had trouble with his drains, and was sometimes late at the office, with similar circumstances of striking interest and concern, which seemed to him to call for public notice. The "Diary" was afterwards republished in book form.
The light and dainty touch of Mr. Andrew Lang has not been denied to Punch. A number of trifles in verse appeared in 1883 and the two following years, the most important of them being a sonnet to Colonel Burnaby—the one contribution, it may be said, that the author has thought well to republish. Some years later he produced the laughable series "The Confessions of a Duffer"—papers so humorous that it is difficult to accept Mr. Lang's disclaimer that "a comic paper is a thing in which I have no freedom to write."
Besides Mr. W. Ralston, with his single contribution of "K.G.—Q.E.D." (November 22nd, 1884), Miss May Kendall was the chief comer of the year 1885. This lady helps to make up Punch's bevy of lady literary contributors—Miss Betham-Edwards, Mrs. Frances Collins, Lady Campbell, Miss Burnand (an occasional reviewer, or "Baronitess"), Miss Hollingshead, and Mrs. Leverson, being the others. She is one of the few lady humorists of any consequence in her day. Women, as a rule, are humorists neither born nor made. Often enough they are wits, more frequently satirists. They can make, we are told, but they cannot take, a joke; at any rate, they are usually out of their element in the comic arena. Moreover, as butts for the caricaturist they are unsatisfactory, for in proportion as his efforts are successful, his sense of chivalry is outraged; and we have seen how Keene and others recoiled from the idea. Only on one occasion did Mr. Furniss make the attempt, and that indirectly and in a sense unintentionally—and the circumstance brought a miniature storm about his ears. No woman has ever yet been a caricaturist, in spite of the fact that her femininity befits her pre-eminently for the part. That she has desisted is a mercy for which man may be devoutly thankful. At the present time the rule here laid down as to lady humorists is proved by an exception in the person of Miss Murphy, a lady, it is said, of much beauty, who worked her way up from a subordinate position to the editorship of "The Melbourne Punch," a really comic production; but the unequal battle that would follow any extensive imitation of her example is altogether too painful to contemplate.
Miss Kendall's first poems, which were introduced to the notice of Punch by Mr. Andrew Lang in sincere admiration of their cleverness, were "The Lay of the Ancient Trilobite," and "Ballad of the Ichthyosaurus," which were printed in the numbers for January 24th and February 14th, 1885. It is Miss Kendall's peculiar talent that she is able to extract delicate humour out of the most unpromising subjects, and even in these lays, which together constituted her maiden effort, the characteristic is clearly shown. One verse may serve as an example; it is from the poem which shows how the Ichthyosaurus aspires to a higher life, and how the all-absorbent Ether remains in triumph after we have played out our little parts to their puny end:—